In 1909, outraged residents of the Richmond and Sunset districts staged a public protest. What set off the good people of western San Francisco was not a tax increase, a zoning change or a political scandal. It was a proposed change in local street names - one they feared would result in their neighborhood being renamed "Spanishtown" or "Dagoville."

Pre-earthquake San Francisco had a major street name redundancy problem. Today, there is only one Virginia Avenue - a pleasant Bernal Heights throughway. But in the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were no fewer than four Virginias - Virginia Street, Virginia Avenue, Virginia Court and Virginia Place.

There were four roads named Church. There were even four Serpentines.

The numbered streets were still more confusing. There were 31 numbered streets and 49 avenues - more or less like today - but there was also a second set of 45 numbered avenues in the Bayview, to which the suffix "South" was appended. More than 100 street names did double duty.

In pre-ZIP code days, these duplicate street names led to chaos. An estimated 500 letters a day were mishandled by the post office.

The post-quake period, when much of the city was being rebuilt, offered a perfect opportunity to solve the street-name problem. So in spring 1909, at the request of the postmaster, Mayor Edward Taylor appointed a street renaming commission, headed by Supervisor Charles Murdock and including the eminent San Francisco historian Zoeth Eldredge and an editor of Sunset magazine, among others.

Murdock and Eldredge favored names celebrating San Francisco's Spanish heritage - a predilection that would have unforeseen consequences.

On Nov. 8, 1909, the commission submitted its report. It recommended changing the numbered avenues in the Richmond and Sunset to Spanish names, which would run in alphabetical order. First Avenue would become Arguello, Second Avenue would be Borcia, Third Avenue Coronado, and so on.

Turning to saints

After Zamorano, the commission still needed 23 more names, so it came up with the idea of a second set of alphabetical Spanish names, this time of saints - San Antonio, Santa Clara, San Carlos - apparently there were no worthy saints whose names began with "B" - and so on through Santa Ynez.

The east-west streets A, B and C in the Richmond would be named after three world-famous Spanish explorers, Anza, Balboa and Cabrillo. The first eight east-west streets in the Sunset, which had been the letters "I" through "P," were to honor less grand figures: Ignacio, Joaquin, Kaweah, Linares, Moncado, Noriega, Ortega and Pacheco.

The commission probably expected its proposals to sail easily through. But when the Board of Supervisors approved the proposed names, the western neighborhoods practically seceded.

San Francisco historian John Freeman unearthed the long-forgotten brouhaha. As he notes in "Street Naming Controversy," an entry in the online Encyclopedia of San Francisco, the denizens of the Richmond and the Sunset were infuriated by the Spanish names.

'Iberian appellations'

"Freebooters and cutthroats, these Spanish fellows," one Charles W. Polk told the Call newspaper. "Why should all these Iberian appellations be hurled down on our district?"

Some of the reaction carried so much cultural baggage it recalled the 16th century "Black Legend," which portrayed Spain as the epitome of cruelty, fanaticism and intolerance.

A leader of the opposition named J.R. Watson told the Call, "What do we want with Spanish names, anyhow? Why, only the other day they shot a man there for speaking out the truth, and they have been the most cruel, tyrannical race in Europe."

The critics declared they wanted names that came from "the motherland" - "England, the land from which we sprang." This outbreak of English-only sentiment was mingled with jingoism, fueled by the fact that the Spanish-American War had recently ended.

Freeman quotes an editorial in the neighborhood newspaper the Richmond Banner: "If the wishes of the 12 of our 'patriotic' supervisors are carried out, our Sunset and Richmond districts will soon be known as the Spanish Town of San Francisco. ... The Spanish will then have taken San Francisco, notwithstanding Dewey's victory at Manila Bay several years ago."

Commission caved

The commission was forced to capitulate. It agreed to allow the numbered avenues to remain, with the exception of First Avenue and 49th Avenue, which were respectively renamed Arguello and La Playa.

Eldredge resigned from the commission in protest, thundering that San Francisco would never become a world-class city like Rome if the concerns of a "petty retail shopkeeper on Ninth Avenue" were allowed to override the panel's lofty civic mission.

A huge indignation rally that had been scheduled turned into a victory party for the western neighborhoods. But Richmond and Sunset dwellers were still determined to have a say over the naming of the east-west streets.

'Horse-trading'

"Now the horse-trading for street names was on," writes Freeman. Anza, Balboa and Cabrillo passed. D had already become Fulton, E, F, and G had been swallowed up by Golden Gate Park, and H had become Lincoln.

That left the east-west streets south of Lincoln. With the first four, anti-Spanish sentiment in the Sunset prevailed.

Ignacio, Joaquin, Kaweah and Linares became Irving (after author Washington Irving), Judah (after the engineer who masterminded the first railroad to cross the Sierra), and Kirkham and Lawton, two generals.

But a compromise was hammered out and the next four streets were changed to Moraga, Noriega, Ortega and Pacheco. The last eight streets, from Quintara to Xavier, had already been given Spanish names by the powerful Parkside Realty Co.

The four gringo-named interlopers in the Sunset remain, a peculiar reminder of a long-vanished San Francisco culture war.

Thanks to John Freeman for assistance with this article.

Editor's note

Every corner in San Francisco has an astonishing story to tell. Every Saturday, Gary Kamiya's Portals of the Past will tell one of those lost stories, using a specific location to illuminate San Francisco's extraordinary history - from the days when giant mammoths wandered through what is now North Beach, to the Gold Rush delirium, the dot-com madness and beyond.

Trivia time

Last week's trivia question: What was Steamer Day?

Answer: The day the bimonthly Panama mail steamer arrived during the 1850s and 1860s. Celebrating its arrival was a beloved city tradition.

This week's trivia question: How many Nike missile batteries were there in the Bay Area?

Gary Kamiya is the author of the best-selling book "Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco," which was just awarded the 2013 Northern California Book Award in creative nonfiction. All the material in Portals of the Past is original for The San Francisco Chronicle. E-mail: metro@sfchronicle.com

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